CARL HIAASEN Herald Columnist

The good people of Hialeah have spoken. As incredible as it seems to the outside world, they want a convicted extortionist to be their mayor again. Go ahead and laugh; Lawton Chiles isn't. The governor announced Wednesday that he won't attempt to suspend Raul Martinez for a second time.

For Chiles, it was a no-win situation. Yanking Martinez from office would have subverted the will of many Hialeah voters. Yet leaving him in City Hall gives the impression that Florida tolerates crooks in high places, particularly crooks with the same political affiliation as the governor. It's a messy dilemma.

Most normal cities would be deeply ashamed to have a felon as mayor, but on Tuesday, Hialeah declared -- if by the slimmest of margins -- that it is beyond shame.

So give the people what they want. Those 14,540 stalwarts who cast their ballots for Martinez surely gave thought to the consequences. Some obviously believe he is innocent, and some obviously don't care. Either way, they've decided that the advantages of having a convict-mayor outweigh the disadvantages.

By allowing Martinez to take office, Chiles establishes Hialeah as a unique sociopolitical experiment of the 1990s -- a sort of biosphere of sleaze. The rest of Florida can watch and learn.

What exactly is the mandate for an elected racketeer? Is he expected to continue extorting? If so, how much and from whom? Can he successfully bridge the ideological chasm between his criminal and noncriminal constituents? These questions are seldom confronted in American politics, and here's a rare opportunity to get them answered.

Because of its checkered history, Hialeah is a logical place to experiment with the convicted-mayor form of government. After 40 years of uninhibited corruption, the undeveloped land is mostly gone and, with it, the opportunities for easy graft.

The city is already an aesthetic ruin, one zoning atrocity stacked shoulder to shoulder against another. Even if Martinez went hog wild, what difference would it really make? How much worse could it get?

In a sense, the Hialeah mayoral race was the purest test of democracy -- the frank exercise of electoral choice in the face of civic pride, conscience and common sense. The people wanted a convicted crook, and they elected him.

Does government have a constitutional right to intervene? What would Thomas Jefferson say?

Voters sometimes do confounding things. Candidates who die on the campaign trail occasionally get elected anyway, but at least dead guys can't steal. The election of a shakedown artist is a riskier proposition.

Although Chiles is staying out of it for now, the Hialeah biosphere could be punctured by other forces. Martinez's conviction on six corruption charges is being appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If the verdict is upheld, the governor has no choice but to jerk Martinez from office.

That's the law. It was conceived on the premise that voters would never tolerate criminals in office and would demand their instant removal. In most places, that's true. Hialeah is a special case, though, and perhaps an exception should be made.

Certainly those who voted for Raul Martinez on Tuesday were aware that he might soon be sent away to serve his 10-year sentence. So deep is their loyalty that many Hialeans would like him to remain their mayor, regardless.

In fact, there's no reason why Raul couldn't take care of the city's business from a prison cell in Eglin or Talladega. All he'd need is a telephone and some privacy.

Heck, it works just fine for John Gotti.